


1-800-273-8255

by cooperbettycooper



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, FP is dead kids, HotlineWorker!Betty, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicidal!Jughead, also gladys is still a bitch but that's not even straying from canon so, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 12:13:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12189789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooperbettycooper/pseuds/cooperbettycooper
Summary: His voice sounds scared, wavering, shaky. But underneath it all was a tone of absolute hopelessness, the incurable, usually terminal kind. She’d never heard it like that before, not at that intensity. Shuffling nervously in her phone booth, she wasn’t sure if any script could help him, just judging off of his desolate voice. She’d have to wing it, she could only hope it would be enough to bring him off the edge.[bughead au, if jughead called the suicide hotline and betty was the operator. prompt filled for @bughead-fanfic-wishlist on tumblr.]





	1-800-273-8255

**Author's Note:**

> okay, this is another story that deals with suicide. yikes. i'm sorry i realize it gets depressing, this one's just been in the drafts a while for the bughead fanfic wishlist on tumblr. i'll post more lighthearted fic soon.
> 
> (thank you @blevswrites for helping me through this story, you're a gem.)
> 
>  
> 
> more importantly though, I have to say this.
> 
> suicide is not the answer. it is never the answer. contrary to how it's being presented in this particular **fictitious** story, the hotline workers usually can't show up to talk you down, but they can talk to you. sometimes, it's all you need to reconsider making a horrible decision.
> 
> please take advantage of that resource. normalize calling the suicide hotline. it's there to help.
> 
> i love you, if you're feeling anything like jughead is in this story i urge you to get the help and support you need. if you need a friend, my tumblr is in the end notes. message me if you need it. i'm not a qualified therapist or anything but i can be a friend if you need one.
> 
> the suicide hotline number is the title of this story. if you need international resources, head over to suicide.org.
> 
> every life is precious. _that includes yours._
> 
> without further ado, lets get on with the story.

Suicide.

 

A permanent solution to a temporary problem. That’s what they tell teenagers to make them not want to do it. Right?

 

Well, Jughead Jones’ situation was a bit out of the ordinary. Simply because he wasn’t trying to escape, or whatever else they said suicidal kids did it for, he really just wanted to die. His problems were permanent and he’d be damned if his solution wasn’t permanent as well.

 

It all started when his mother had been gone for months, probably never coming back to the place she’d left in the dust. He’d learned to numb the pain and repress the loneliness, and if he had to get any stray remnants of bitterness out he’d write until they went away. That was the only thing relatively close to a coping mechanism Jughead had.

 

For a while, his father sobered. He cleaned. Hell, he’d shaved. In Jughead’s world, that was equivalent to tectonic plates shifting.

 

But then it got bad again, worse. Terrible.

 

It was a kind of pain Jughead had never felt before. A burning, searing, hollow pain that settles right in the depths of his fractured soul. He knows where it comes from. He knows it’s an effect of the years of trauma and hardships he’d experienced in life. But he has no idea how to stop it.

 

And then, he was gone.

 

All Jughead had left, his own mess of a father, the man he’d spent years giving and giving and _giving_ _to_ and sacrificing opportunities and his own childhood for, had just fucking left him. He knew his father was selfish, he always had been. But it still hit him like a truck when it happened.

 

He’d just never guessed his father would be _that_ selfish. To fucking leave him all alone in the world. Alone to face his fears, face the boogeyman in the dark hall and the monsters under the bed. He’s too old to believe in such things, but to this day he could not sleep without closing the closet door, scarred from the stories that riddled his childhood.

 

His father has left him and his mother has left him in a different, but equally as painful way, leaving him alone to attend that funeral, save for his father’s horrid “work friends” clad in leather. He always knew the secrets FP hid, deep inside the pockets of his worn down leather jacket.

 

Jughead was still missing his mother and sister, wondering if they knew what had happened at all. Or if they even cared.

 

Everywhere he goes reminds him of his father, and their small town and it’s shitty sympathy disguised in the form of green bean casseroles and grieving cards has not been helping. People tell him to stop looking down. So he starts looking up. It hasn’t helped.

 

It’s not his fault the sun burns his eyes.

 

But in the empty trailer, Jughead’s mind whispers to him that his only tether to a semi-functional life hates him too. Archie hates him, far more concerned with New-Girlfriend the 16th, Veronica Lodge. She’d come from New York and pulled him in by her long, sinister, manicured finger nails. It was at the worst possible time, as though he needed something like this right now, at the centre of their town’s attention.

 

Writing chips away at him, so he stops. It helped for a little while, but then caused him to dissect each and every sickening thought he had in his brain. It had the reverse effect after a while. Everything hurts, and he stops as much as he can get away with stopping. He stops eating, showering, taking care of himself in any way at all.

 

But it’s not enough.

 

Perhaps still optimistic, he keeps looking up. And then his eyes see it -- a small ledge. Big enough of a height to end his life but small enough for him to not regret it midway down.

 

So he starts thinking with a much sicker, far more twisted optimism. That optimism brings him to the ledge, wind blowing behind him, threatening to push him if he didn’t push himself.

 

Just one step. It’s all it would take.

 

He pulls out his phone to check the time.

 

5:42 PM.

 

It’d take him no more than a minute to fall down, maybe two. Time of death: 5:44 PM at the latest.

  
It was the only right time he’d get, or he’d have to wait until tomorrow and he wasn’t sure if his weak, frail body had enough energy to bring him back here tomorrow. The walk up the rocky path from the river hadn’t been very kind to his aching legs. Adults were not out of work yet and kids were at home and did not care, along with the rest of the world. Perfect timing.

 

He looks down. Would it hurt? A part of him hopes it doesn't, but a part of him hopes it does. He just needs to feel something, _anything_ that’ll stop the internal pain he's been feeling for so long. After all, it’s just one step, and the pain will be gone. He won’t hurt anymore. He needed to not hurt anymore.

 

But when he peeks over the edge, his stomach knots itself to a sickening point and his feet are glued to the ground and he’s terrified. He can’t call anyone but he needs to hear the voice of a human being.

 

He had to, or he thinks he might die and all of a sudden that doesn’t sound so great.

 

His fingers tap frantically at his tiny phone screen before he finds what he’s looking for.

 

_1-800-273-8255._

 

\--

 

Betty Cooper works at a hotline.

 

Definitely not the most glamorous job, but that’s no surprise for the blonde haired, pastel wearing girl.

 

Other teens her age were likely waitressing for minimum wage or out drinking with their friends with best regards from mommy and daddy’s credit card statements. But instead, Betty pulls out scripts from a shelving unit in her cubicle, the main secretary re-routing the calls and connecting helpless teens and young adults to the appropriate aid she is supposed to provide. And it just so happens she’s just been trained, and is now qualified to handle “sensitive phone calls,” otherwise known as the polite code for teens who want to die and call as a last ditch attempt before they do the horrible deed.

 

Betty’s thought about doing it. Especially in early high school. Part of what makes her so good at her job is that she _understands_ where a lot of these people come from. She’s been there herself. To that dark, scary, traumatizing place. But she never actually did it, and it’s perhaps the best decision she’s ever made. She didn’t realize it right away, but now that she has, she has to help these people realize it. So she answers every call with the softest voice she can muster, urges callers to breathe and talks them through their problems.

 

Her method has warranted her a 100% success rate so far.

 

The phone on her desk is ringing, somehow more urgently than it normally does.

 

She picks up the phone, and is greeted with the sound of a young man, no more than her age for sure, mumbling to himself. She can hear him pace and wind blowing into the microphone. He must be outside.

 

“Hello, is anyone there?” She asks gingerly. Her and her fellow call-answering attendants were told to remain at the utmost calmness at the beginning of every call.

 

“Hi-uh, I’m Jughead,” He mumbles. _What an odd name,_ she thinks.

“Well, hi. I’m Betty. Thanks for calling the hotline. Is there something I can help you with today?”

He gulps before answering.

 

“I’m not sure. I’m on a cliff right now and I almost jumped but then I freaked out.”

 

Well that answers most of the standard procedure questions for her.

 

His voice sounds scared, wavering, shaky. But underneath it all was a tone of absolute hopelessness, the incurable, usually terminal kind. She’d never heard it like that before, not at that intensity. Shuffling nervously in her phone booth, she wasn’t sure if any script could help him, just judging off of his desolate voice. She’d have to wing it, she could only hope it would be enough to bring him off the edge.

 

“Okay, please, just take a deep breath, um…” She can’t remember his name, and instantly feels horrible for it.

“It’s Jughead.”

“Right. My bad. Jughead, you sound really riled up. Take a second to breathe okay? Breathe with me,” she said calmly, trying to keep her voice grounded. She counts quietly until she hears little breaths in time with her counts.

 

She’s been working this job for months and has all the scripts memorized. Teens call about everything from being grounded to suicide, and as a teen herself, she does what she can to be a voice of reason. She hasn’t failed once, but she’s never, ever been so nervous. So afraid to fail.

 

“Jughead, let’s start with how you’re feeling right now. How do you feel?”

 

He feels like throwing himself off the edge of the cliff and spending a single, brief suspended moment in air, then have it end. He had it all planned out, and now this girl with the sugary sweet voice is making him want to reconsider and he doesn’t want to reconsider.

 

“I’m so-s-” He can’t form the words. Was there a word for how he was feeling?

“It’s okay. Let it out.”

“I’m scared, Betty. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. But I don’t know how to make it go away!”

 

A gust of wind blows from behind him, and he screams, just threatening to send him over. Betty feels her heart jump out of her chest.

 

“Jughead, are you okay?”

“Uh-yeah. There was some wind,”

“I have to ask you to get down from there, or at least away from an actual cliff’s edge. The wind is strong enough to push you over!”

 

Operators aren’t supposed to sound frantic, but she can’t help herself.

 

Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to take just one step back. Just one. So he did.

 

“I stepped back.”

 

Betty lets out an inaudible sigh of relief, wiping at a bead of sweat beginning to dribble down her forehead.

 

“Great. Now, Jughead, I know this is going to make me sound very insensitive but I have to ask, have you taken any drugs? Alcohol?”

“My dad’s an alcoholic. I’d never drink.”

 

He says it like she must know, but he realizes there’s no way for her to.

 

“I’m sorry, I sound like a dick. But no, I didn’t. I just want to die, you don’t need drugs to feel like that.”

“I know, Jughead. Now I’m going to have to ask you some serious questions, please try to stay calm and answer me. I know you’re terrified, but I need you to try. Can you try for me?”

 

He’d do anything for her right now.

 

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Firstly, have you planned how you’d kill yourself?”

 

Maybe a script couldn’t help him, but if she didn’t complete standard procedure she could be fired.

 

“I wrote a note, to my mom. And my dad. And my sister. I love my sister so much, I feel so bad but--”

 

Betty notices the stress disappear from his voice for just a second. Maybe he needs this right now. The questions can wait.

 

“Jughead, tell me about your sister.”

 

His eyebrow quirks up.

“My sister? Yeah, sure. Her name’s Jellybean, she’s 10.”

“What does she like to do?”

 

He sounds almost happy. Maybe this could calm him.

 

“She listens to music on vinyl. Pink Floyd. She’s so cool,” he says wistfully. Just how much he’s missing her is anyone’s guess.

 

“She sounds wonderful. Jughead, have you considered what would happen if you left, what would happen to her?”

 

And Betty can feel her throat tighten. She’s fucked up. She had to ask, but she’s fucked up.

 

“My mom, when she left me and my dad, she took Jellybean with her. I don’t see her anymore.”

“Is that one of the reasons you’ve been feeling this way?”

 

“One of them.” Jughead feels sick to his stomach. There are so many reasons, countless, endless. And he wonders why he called in the first place, when he could be gone by now. “Betty, I can’t talk about this anymore!”

 

The terminal, terrifying tone is back. She’s biting her lip raw. She has to do something.

 

“Jughead, if you tell me where you are, I won’t send authorities. _I’ll_ come get you.”

“No, please-- you’re not even allowed to do that.”

“You’re right, I’m not. But a life is more important than my job.”

 

To be honest, he wants to meet Betty. Maybe even thank her, before carrying out his original plan anyway. At least her voice made his last few moments pleasant. He rattles the address off to her and Betty writes it on her hand, hoping the sweat in her palms wouldn’t run the ink.

 

“I’m coming. Stay where you are, _please._ ”

“I promise, come quick,”

 

Her boss will understand, somehow. A life is more important. That’s what they do, right? Save lives?

 

Meanwhile, Jughead is too scared to do anything. To approach his untimely demise or to retreat, so he stays in the scary middle ground, on a pivot. He could run up and tumble off, let it all end, or he could wait for Betty. Like he said he would. He doesn’t move for the solid 15 minutes it takes Betty to break 3 speeding limits and show up at the overlooking edge, if one were to trek up the path of Sweetwater River high enough to see both the Riverdale and Greendale side.

 

And there, she sees him. A shaking, black haired boy with the bluest eyes she'd ever seen. Just the sight of him, so weak and vulnerable, makes her heart stop in her chest. She wills herself to call out to him, hoping not to scare him, wind threatening to shove him over if he were just a foot closer to the risky cliff.

 

“Jughead? I’m Betty. From the hotline.”

 

His head whips around, and his hands reach up to tug on the ratty beanie sitting atop his unruly curls. She takes gingerly steps toward him, hands up as though approaching an animal that could snap at her. He does nothing of the sort. In fact, she thinks she’s noticing his cheeks taking up an absolutely beautiful pink colour.

 

He didn’t expected her to be here so quickly. Then once he sees her, Jughead is convinced angels are real. He’s never been religious, but how could she be anything else?

 

Her blonde ponytail and bright green eyes, a soft pink sweater with a v neck coming to rest its hem on her hips. She’s wearing blue jeans and white keds with two dirt stains on them. Jughead spends far longer staring than what is socially acceptable, but it’s giving him something else to think about so he welcomes the distraction.

 

And then his muscles are acting without his mind’s command and he’s running up to her, throwing his arms around her shoulders. He’s scared he’s crushing her, she’s so fragile and even though just a few inches taller, he’s scared he might end up hurting her.

 

She's so startled by how warm he is. Warm and safe. She relaxes into the touch, wind blowing at her hair and loosening the tightened ponytail. She feels something warm soak into a little patch on her shoulder.

 

_He’s crying._

 

“Hey, no! Don’t cry,” she whispers sweetly, the way she does when speaking to her sister’s kids.

“I’m sorry!” He’s forcing out words between his racking sobs and she rubs her hand up and down his back. He retracts from her against his own will, and Betty’s hand reaches out to wipe the tears off his cheeks, eventually going down to trace three little beauty marks on his cheek that would form a triangle if connected.

 

Maybe if they’d met any other way, she’d ask him out for coffee, or something. If the situation wasn’t so dire, butterflies would be flapping their wings for dear life in her stomach, because he’s the most beautiful boy she’s ever seen.

What had hurt him so much he’d want to go?

 

“I’m so--I’m so sorry, Betty. You didn’t have to come out here. I wasn’t going to jump.”

 

Her eyes fill with tears, happy ones, she thinks they are.

She pulls her sleeve halfway up her palm, noticing that the ink on her hand has begun to smear, and wipes at her eyes daintily.

 

“Why not? What changed your mind?”

“You’d feel so bad, you tried to help me and if it was for nothing, I’d be letting you down.”

 

Her heart breaks and grows three sizes all at once. He reaches up to pull off his beanie, raking his fingers through his greasy hair. Her shoulders are carrying so much tension that her neck is starting to hurt. She takes a deep breath and lets the tension drop, feeling as though she can finally breathe since she got the phone call from him.

 

“Let’s talk,” she offers, reaching a hand out to him and walking him down the path, closer to her car. He looks scared at first, but when he takes the first step the others follow suit and they’re off the cliff and on stable ground. He wants to kiss the ground she walks on. Because maybe if he hadn’t called her, hadn’t heard another person, he might have thrown himself off.

 

This is a start, a step in the right direction. Maybe the cliff was the wrong choice.

**Author's Note:**

> like I mentioned earlier, call the hotline if you need it, or head over to suicide.org and find appropriate resources in your country. 
> 
> and if you just need a friend, message me at cooperbettycooper.tumblr.com.
> 
> a comment would make my heart grow three sizes <3
> 
> thank you for reading.


End file.
